CHICAGO, Oct. 6, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Intellectual property law firm McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP (MBHB) has filed a pro bono patent application on behalf of three female students currently attending Naperville North High School. The patent application was prepared under the supervision of Michael Borella, Ph.D., partner and co-chair of the firm’s Software & Business Methods Practice Group.

The students’ invention, “Detecting Depression Using Machine Learning Models on Human Speech Samples,” uses trained machine learning models to detect whether a person has clinical depression based on a sample of their voice. The inventors identified key acoustic features that distinguish depressed from nondepressed individuals and developed a suite of models that could be used to enhance or improve accuracy rates of depression detection.

“MBHB is committed to championing and developing diverse STEM talent and is proud to support this worthy cause,” said Jori Fuller, MBHB partner and co-chair of the firm’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. “These young women represent the future of innovation and it is the firm’s privilege to take them on as clients with this pro bono filing.”

This comprehensive approach, aided by a developed model, could help objectively and quickly screen for potential predictors of depression, which is especially critical now. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 17.3 million adults in the United States, about 7.1% of the population, are affected by depression. And the pandemic has exacerbated the issue; according to a December 2020 survey from the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 42% of respondents reported symptoms of anxiety or depression as compared to 11% the previous year. Moreover, the inventors – as students themselves – consider clinical depression a significant issue that is frequently untreated or undiagnosed in adolescents and young adults. This work resulted in the students being named First Place National Winners for their age group at the Army Educational Outreach Program’s eCybermission competition.

For more information about MBHB’s Committee for Diversity and Inclusion, visit https://www.mbhb.com/firm/diversity-inclusion.

About McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP
With offices in Illinois, California and North Carolina, MBHB provides a variety of intellectual property services, including litigation, prosecution and general client counseling. With a balanced focus on prosecution and litigation, MBHB attorneys are experienced in the procurement, licensing, enforcement, and defense of patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and unfair competition actions in a number of technological disciplines and product categories including biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, cannabis, chemical, electrical, mechanical and materials, medical device and diagnostics, software and business methods, and telecommunications. Visit www.mbhb.com for more information on the firm.

SOURCE McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP